


An Explorer's Guide

by vtedy1



Category: An Explorer's Guide
Genre: M/M, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27879230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtedy1/pseuds/vtedy1
Summary: The Land is vast and dangerous! To all those who explore it a book can always come in handy! So sit back and relax with the Explorer's Guides collection. Least you venture unprepared and end up as an empty husk, never to be heard of again!An Explorer's Guide is just what the title says. Most are written by a healer named Edwane but lately a new author uses the title to describe the Ghost Realm. Will he convince his target audience of it's virtues? Read and judge for yourself!
Relationships: G.K.L/Edwane





	An Explorer's Guide

An Explorer’s Guide To Adventuring

The wilderness is a scary and untamed place. Between the mountains where the ghosts and demons make their cities and the various wildlife one must always be vigilant in order not to become food.

This guide’s author has a slight advantage in being a healer, the only type of magician people would ignore on the route and will even be well received by all living humanoid creatures in the Wild Lands.

Before we come to the point of this booklet, that is how to survive outside of the human cities and the different towers, let me explain why my situation is slightly different than your own.

To start with my name is Edwane and I am a half demon half human. Now before you close this book and scoff at the library’s attendant that he/she gave you nonsense instead a guide for surviving like you asked please have some faith in me and do keep reading.

Why is it important to know this? Because the world we live in is vast and has many creatures in it. To survive in it one must first understand that picking fights with people of the different races based only on rumors is a no go.

It’s true that the rumors are based on some facts. Such as that demons like eating human flesh and ghost essence, making them outcasts from these two races but there are demons that can refrain from this type of food and sustain themselves on normal meals.

It is only the strongest of demonic fighters that will scoff at such a fare as they will lose their fighting strength the less they gorge themselves with magic rich flesh that they can only get from live humans.

As the reader has guessed I am not a fighting class demon and I quite happily munch on human delicacies that I usually get from successfully healing people. So now that we cleared that and the reader is assured this book is not a cheap attempt at luring my next meal I hope he/she continues reading.

Lesson number one: Don’t judge a book by its color. I pretty much cleared this one already. That is not to say that the reader must run up to everything in the wild or enter abounded looking houses thinking that he/she has found a place for the night.

There is no such thing as abounded property in all the continents. If it still has four walls and a roof then you can bet there is someone hiding within. If that happens to be a ghost or a demon and the hiding place is close to the main road then the reader can bet that this is a hunting lodge.

Now I am aware that this book can be passed to demons and ghosts too and I do apologize if I seem rude towards their kind but as the average demon or a ghost is at least as strong as ten humans in their prime and don’t need my advices as much as their human counterpart I will continue to write with the weaker race in mind.

I have mentioned ghosts and demons so many times that the more sheltered ones among my readers must be second guessing if they really need to venture out of their homes in search of adventure after all.

I will start with saying that ghost and demons are, even if no one believes it, law abiding citizen and don’t attack on random. They have their own government, cities and towers and banishment for them, which is the punishment for those that bring animosity by breaking the “Traveler Protection Act”, is as severe as it would be for any human as it leads to starvation and then loss of their might.

That is not to say that travelers can use the “Traveler Protection Act” and its many loopholes to cause ire to these two types of beings. Ghosts and demons are crafty an can and will hide the remains of your body so well that no one will notice a crime was even committed.

For example if a human traveler is to throw rocks and laugh and a demon is to bash that foolish traveler’s head with one of these projectiles no one will report it as an act of aggression. If however the demon was to lay in ambush for a passerby their guilt will be clear and one of the ascended Heroes of the human race will report the crime to the Demonic House of Justice.

Then it’s straight to the Coliseum where the aggressor will be given a slim chance at avoiding banishment. There he will face other demons of the fighting class and should he be victorious he will be let loose. If he was to repeat the same crime he will be banished. And worse if he continues to hunt humans he would be dragged back to the Coliseum where he would have to fight in the melee.

That is a good chance for sick demons to get their medicine, which is as the reader can guess, the flesh of another demon. Which is why the bandit ends torn to shreds and his body parts get distributed free of charge to the ill. That leads to the aggressor being reborn as an animal or a plant as his essence gets devoured. The unfortunate demon can’t even linger as a ghost. Such is the lot of aggressors.

Then how do demons get their human flesh to stay strong? That is the second use of the Coliseum! Before it was build and the “Civil Protection Act Of The Land” was passed humans build prisons and stored their criminals there. But because they couldn’t win their constant wars with demons and ghosts and were on the verge of losing their cities and towers they agreed to pass all their criminals to the Demonic House of Justice.

Originally both sides agreed to let demons butcher the criminals. That, however, didn’t sit well with neither race’s population. The humans didn’t want to see other humans being treated as cattle and were ready to revolt. The demons themselves thought that it was an insult to their hunting skills and didn’t want to get what they called “the scraps from the table”.

In the end it was agreed that there will be duels between the hunting demons and the criminals in the Coliseum. That way both sides would get a fair, or as fair chance as it can be, at victory. This method with dealing with criminals was so feared the crime rate plunged after the first such duel and only the foolhardy try their hand at murder and thievery nowadays.

But enough about demons, lets describe the other “race” now. Ghosts are lingering shades of humans and demons that know they will be reborn in a horrible way due to their actions while alive and so they choose to linger and feed off the souls of all things living.

Unlike the demons, which are made from flesh and blood, the ghost have no corporal form and only appear as white smoke with red and black markings in the middle. I must admit I don’t know much about them. Unlike demons and humans they are very secretive and to enter one of their towns is a high honor or a deadly curse.

I myself have been to just one, and was allowed only in the market street. There were many possessed human and demonic skins by various ghosts. For ghosts don’t like wasting anything during their “downtime” from their punishment and have no fear of warriors.

Now the reader might think me heartless after he/she reads this but I have to admit I didn’t feel badly when walking among this strangely lively graveyard of empty shells that was the market. I felt no fear as the ghost king of the town had invited me and promised me a save passage, bread and salt, if I was to look into a way to extend the life of his current favorite shell, a young man of around twenty that resembled the way the ghost looked during his life.

Now before I get lost in the memory I have to write down survival rule number two: Don’t go anywhere, invited or no, if you are not guaranteed bread and salt! Run away if you can and don’t eat the offerings if the bread is stale or the salt moist!

I read a book on home protection and saw these passages in it so I was prepared for the possibility of being tricked, but many travelers don’t have the healthy habit of visiting the town libraries often so many things remain blank to them.

If your “host” can trick you with stale offerings then that means they declare themselves your enemies and challenge you to an honor duel. That way they are free to attack you with the element of surprise on their side as soon as you take a bite to your mouth.

Now where was I? A yes, my visit to the ghost king. He had the gall to offer me stale offerings at first, so I threatened to tear him to shreds with my eight snake-head tails. Which, now that I think about it, would have been really hard as a snake’s jaw is not made to tear anything. Still if the need arose I would have injected as much poison as possible in his skin and it would have died of a heart failure, forcing the ghost king to search for another one. Not that it would have stopped him from eating my soul.

Fortunately the ghost king quickly swiped the insulting stale bread and moist salt for freshly baked bread and fine, dry salt. As it turns out he was really attached to his skin and any chance of it expiring was too big of a deal for him. In the end I took the guest right offerings and did a health check on the husk.

Turns out the ghost had hunted in it one too many times and most of its bones were broken. The worst case were the ribs, a courtesy of a kick by a demon who, judging by the ghost king’s angry mutterings, not only escaped with his soul intact, but he also managed to take a few bites from the essence of the king.

Seeing as nothing could be done for the skin, and I still have the feeling I was only called to replace it with my own, I was allowed to return to the market area and was extended an invitation to visit again. I accepted it. For once bread and salt has been served it becomes a guarantee for no further hostilities from the one who gave them.

That on itself can easily be turned into a loophole, as the boundaries of the term “breaking and entering” are hazy in such a case. Should I enter the manor of the ghost king again without his knowledge I would be considered a thief and my once gracious host will be honor bound to not only expel me from his home but also punish me.

Rule number three: Don’t think about the food chain too much.

It is a bit crass to name it thus, but the food chain is very real in this land of ours. On top of it are the demons, as they are the only ones who can eat ghosts. Ghosts are below them and yet they can devour the souls of both demons and humans and wear their skins like clothes.

As a half demon I have eaten my fair share of ghosts, mostly those who tried to get me off track during my journeys and thus breaking first the “Traveler Protection Act” which is law for all three races. Ghosts taste vile, like bitter medicine, and yet eating their essence is the only way to subdue them in case they decide to haunt you.

If you are a human and on the road you meet a ghost you have better have visited a shrine to your celestial hero beforehand as he/she would be the only one powerful enough to disperse the ghost essence by battling the ghost. If you haven’t and no demon comes to your aid once you start screaming then I might get called to examine you as a ghost’s shell.

So don’t mind the food chain, as long as you keep to the “Traveler Protection Act” and don’t start any trouble you can safely travel from one town to the next.

Rule number four: Always hit the libraries before going anywhere.

There are numerous travel guides with descriptions on the different routes, towers and cities. After one pays the lifelong tax of 1500 silvers they are free to use the vast amount of knowledge stored within. 

Now I know silver isn’t cheap and to gather 1500 coins for a library fee will take years but if one doesn’t have the patience to earn such a fortune then they wouldn’t have any money to buy their traveling gear either.

It goes without saying that to some humans adventuring is like a work free ticket for the “rest” of their lives. I use the word rest because those who don’t do their research usually end up as food mere days after living their homes. Unless they are exceptionable powerful. Then they may blunder their way for a month or two.

So if research is so important how does one do it on a short budget? If the reader is of a poor background then he/she probably picked my book from a café’s free reading shelf. Or they might have made use of the one hour of free reading time in each library available every day between 10 and 11 in the morning.

If the reader has found my book through the first option then I suggest you take notes and return it on the shelf as soon as possible so some would be adventurer might get some good advice from it too. Whatever you do remember to order something from the café you are in to thank the workers there for the warmth and the free knowledge. The café attendants might not kick you out if you don’t but they might curse you if you seem to be there only for the books and don’t give them the opportunity to earn from you.

Now the inexperience reader might scoff and ignore this advice but being cursed by just about anyone is no light matter. Every curse, no matter if it it’s something small like “I hope he trips outside” can accumulate and serve as a calling beacon for ghosts. If cursed enough times ghosts will become so interested in you, as from what I’ve heard the more curses you get the tastier your soul becomes, that they might venture into a city at night in order to get to you.

Should the reader be using the second option I urge him/her to use the valuable time to read up on a profession and use the rest 23 hours of his day in order to earn a living. Adventuring does not always lead one to treasures. No one would bury his gold and silver in the earth unless it’s a lure for adventurers! At best you might become an unwilling servant to a celestial hero, at worst your soul might get eaten and then you won’t only waste your lifetime, you will no longer be able to be reborn!

Rule number five: Celestial heroes are “heroes”, not saints!

I’ve mentioned these type of people before, but didn’t describe them. Celestial heroes are war and scholarly heroes. That is to say they have won all their battles or invented something spectacular like the latest one who invented thermal drilling in order to create electricity from the power of the earth.

How exactly they get recognized and become truly immortal, the only ones in existence at that, I don’t know. It is a closely guarded secret. The ones I’ve talked to could only tell me that they had a “One True God” that would lift them up to him so their brilliance wouldn’t be extinguished. I was only given this much information because these immortals, while truly unable to die, could still have injuries on them that could cause them to lose their minds.

So they, just like mortals, need healers. Unlike mortals they have enough accumulated treasures on them from their shrines and temples to be able to pay me and other experienced healers to do damage control. I cannot talk enough about the healing process. If it wasn’t illegal to experiment on anyone, let alone on immortals, I would have done it.

But as the “Healing Codex” has been in power for the last three thousand years this is very much impossible. One can choose to ignore the codex, but one cannot choose to ignore the Coliseum and be torn limb from limb in it. There were a few recent scientists that got caught experimenting on humans and are now on the run but I feel that without their powerful benefactors they would soon be destroyed. 

It’s such a pity that everyone wants a healer to help them but few understand that one can learn so much experimenting on corpses or reading books. This leaves healers only the option of experimenting on themselves in order to learn. I had to learn how to mend bones by breaking my own. How to properly extract poison from the internal organs by drinking vials of the stuff and having scarcely the time to act and perform the procedures I have only read in books.

I even learned the hard way that demonic blood can cause corruption in a human’s body. Which is how I ended up as a half snake demon touring the lands. Normally it would have killed me but I survived, only to suffer from Hemophilia. As a caution to the young healers among you that think this is a small price to pay for getting a demon’s longevity and retaining their human magical powers I say this: Hemophilia in a hybrid is far more severe than in a normal human. Not only doesn’t my blood clot from even the smallest of wounds but it also gushes out of the wound far faster than I can normally replenish it.

The only cure to that I have found is coating the wound with ghost essence and laying low somewhere until the wound is fully closed. To those that would call me a quack doctor I can only give this information. Once you become a hybrid there is no going back. Since your human blood fights the blood, or God forbid internal organs, of whatever you managed to catch and butcher there will always be health problems. Luckily when I found out I had Hemophilia a Ghost was attacking me and thinking it could cause even more damage to me it latched to my wounded wrist and unknowing to it that helped stop the bleeding and gave me enough time to use magic to forcibly close my wound. 

But let us return to the topic of celestial heroes. While it’s true that they sell their protection to everyone that can pay, or give enlightenment to would be inventors, there are those amount them that think that just because they are immortals and their souls are protected of being eaten by whatever spell their “God” used on them, they deserve to be served by mortals and would often abuse their followers.

If faced with such an immortal be calm and know that the “Traveler Protection Act” protects you from them too. By what some of those I treated tell me they too are punished by their “Heavenly Court” and viciously tortured until they are in need of a healer such as me.

Rule number six: Get a job!

Its fine going for walks outside the cities, but in the end of the day to truly adventure outside of them one must have proper travelling clothes. A weapon. At least one companion and it would be better for the reader’s survival chances if said companion is paid for and not just another adventurer.

If you thought that the library tax is expensive just think what hiring someone might cost you! If you don’t have a fortune just go make one. Get yourself through school, even if schools are somewhat expensive themselves, and get a job.

If you really want to adventure after retiring pick something that gives a lot of money like being a scientist or a fighting instructor. Just whatever you do don’t pick something like art if you have no ability with it, generally those programs are cheap for a reason.

If you are talented go ahead and enlist, ghosts pay a fortune for statues and plays written in their honor every year and since they rob all their victims they are generally rich enough to pay any fee. Of course if your work is not up to their standards they will eat your soul as recompense for your working expenses. Every profession has its risk and the life of a travelling artist and explorer is no different.

Whit this I conclude the booklet and I hope I was of help to you, dear reader. If I have failed to disillusion you from your goal of leaving home and making a living on the road then I am truly sorry. But if you ever need a healer and see a young half snake demon with auburn hair and blue eyes wearing a long white robe don’t be alarmed and approach me. I have given a secret vow to heal all those who need it regardless if they can pay me on the spot or not.

After finishing the book a black haired youth closed it with a smile on his lips. The book author had pratted on and on about the punishments for crimes and yet his book’s latest reader had pilfered it from the library. A crime that would normally result in a lashing.

It always amused him when another of Edwane’s books would get published. The man travelled for a living and yet thought the world was filled with dangers that normal humans just couldn’t handle. He should have been plunging deep into life’s delights and instead for all his five hundred years of living he only observed and didn’t meddle in other’s affairs unless asked to.

To have the longevity of a demon and do only that seemed a waste for the ghost. It even amused him that in this book he had proclaimed his greatest weakness to all the world. Had this ghost known he was helping him back then he wouldn’t have let him loose so easily.

The latest reader of the Explorer’s Guide was indeed that very same ghost that the author had to thank for not dying from blood loss! Ever since the faithful encounter the nameless ghost had admitted defeat and even hosted Edwane as a guest in his manor, his attempt to give him stale offerings a last ditch effort to eat the soul that escaped him all these years ago.

Now, after the proper bread and salt offering, mixed in with Edwane’s generally healthy caution towards loopholes in the different laws of the Land, there was nothing the ghost king could do to harm the healer. Still it was amusing to read the books and note that even with them there were still many human and demonic adventurers who only read the parts which stated that this and that act would protect them and picked fights with the first ghost they saw, resulting in them becoming a soul lighter. Their empty husk collected as if they were clothes.

Whit a flick of his wrist the ghost king set the small booklet on fire. The fewer people who read it the better, lest his fare source might get some common sense into their thick skulls at last and learn to only do sightseeing rather than picking fights.

It had been nearly two hundred years since the bread and salt plot and the ghost still wanted to make trouble for the healer. If left isolated even a paper cut could end him and the ghost has always wondered if five hundred years of walking around were enough for the half demon. Would he choose to be reborn and lose his memories, all the knowledge?

Someone like Edwane should make for a great ghostly rival. Make things interesting if he ever made a territory grab. What with all those in his debt due to the brunette’s mantra that he had vowed to “Heal, not judge, all those who need it”. That put a lot of celestial heroes in his pocket and a good number of influential demons and entire human clans.

Whit how expensive a visit to the hospital was, and the ghost was glad he was but a soul who changed skins as soon as a health issue appeared for if not he would either be forced to stop fighting or be beggared, healers like Edwane were in high demand.

The problem was only humans could do magic. And those who ascended only healed other celestial heroes because of their pride in their skills. So for a healer who had hundreds of years of experience like the half human was a pretty big deal. Not only that but he was also took his healing vows seriously and did indeed made healing the people of the Land his priority. That and writing his books, of which there were many.

Surely if dead he would finally stop being so darn peaceful. Only attacking when attacked. Never badmouthing others even if they deserve it. Finally putting his brain to worthwhile pursuits.

If only his snake-head tails weren’t so darn fast and their venom so potent Edwane would be dead by now and the ghost would finally see the result of his guesses at last.

The healer himself wasn’t an able fighter and never ventured alone. Always being guarded by at least two fighters, preferably demons, as ghosts, while being capable of taking damage, couldn’t feel pain as they had long since abounded their original bodies. Even when their essence was being devoured they would not slow down in a fighting as they could easily just regenerate their forms by eating souls.

When pain was out of the equation so was fear and for a fighter to win against such an opponent they must be truly battle crazed and capable. And Edwane sure knew how to pick them. Scared of ghosts as he was.

The king could, theoretically, call his army and wipe off the healer’s travelling companions and win in such a way but he knew that would be admitting defeat. And he was only interested in Edwane since the man was the only pray that he ever lost. After so many years he didn’t even want to eat his soul anymore. More like he wanted to stop his constant wandering and have a healer by his side with whom to plan with.

Should he finally get his wish his skins would have top notch care and last him for centuries! A tailor for his wardrobe was what the ghost king needed. A tailor who could make the skins half demonic or half human and thus eliminating the need for the ghost king to have to choose between a magically capable skin or a sturdy one for fighting.

Sure he could always escape a ruined husk but some of them looked just how he had always wanted to look when alive and it hurt his pride to lose them. But if the healer would tailor him half-half skins and his natural ghost essence resolves the blood gushing problem Edwane has then he would be the envy of all ghost king. Truly the strongest!

A grim expression passed over the ghost king’s face. He had tried injecting demonic blood into human husk but it ended with them being dissolved and turning into goo, the demonic blood eating them from the veins like acid. He had tried hiring healers and scientist and having them experiment on themselves but to no avail. They had all died screaming just as the used husks would have, if their original souls were still there.

So whatever Edwane had done to survive was unknown to anyone else and the half-demon refused to divulge his secret. What the ghost king guessed was that the healer’s healing abilities were either fast enough to mend flesh and blood vessels during the transformation period and thus unique to him and him alone, unless another healer appears and achieves the same.

With how expensive schools were, let alone medical universities, the hope of that was slim to none. After all Edwane was said to have started breaking and healing on a very young age in order to help earn money for his mother, a woman too sick to work, and hopefully heal her someday.

According to his sources the man never got the chance as only an year after he had started and only at the level of regenerating cut flesh and stopping bleeding from arteries fast enough for it to be useful, the woman’s condition worsened and she passed away, leaving the young boy to fend for himself.

Without any other path ahead of him Edwane continued risking his life in order to heal others until eventually he made enough money for a library card, which were even more expensive back then than they are now, but fortunately enough still life-long. That and his mother’s greatest gift to him, teaching him how to read and write and do sums, he practically devoured medical literature and experimented with everything he read on himself, no longer slashing blindly in the dark.

This sort of dedication couldn’t be paid for with money and so if the ghost king wanted to have invincible skin-armor and expand his territory with it, there was only one tailor who, if he would just stop pretending to be saintly and above what he called “the food chain” in his latest book, the ghost king could finally expand his lands and make his Ghost Town a true bastion of his power.

It wasn’t like he was the only ghost who had the same idea as him either. His rivals tried to sweeten the deal with Edwane with every method they could think about but the healer would always state the ghosts had nothing for him. This was mainly due to the fact that Edwane knew just why they needed him and didn’t want a ghost war to plunge the Land into decades of bloodshed.

The Ghost King had an advantage over the other kings by knowing that Edwane’s peaceful nature was not an act. The healer truly felt it was his calling to heal all those who needed it and while he was at it to warn the world of the dangers in the Land and maybe write a travelling guide or two describing its beauty too.

Such a way of thinking was foreign to the war-loving ghost kings of the Land. And then a thought suddenly struck the king. Had anyone ever tried to show the healer the beauty of a good fight? The joy of a hard earned victory over a worthy foe?

He guessed not. Most people tried to appear as Edwane himself was and not show their true colors, least they be denied treatment. After their pain was relieved and no payment was asked for but that which they felt they could spare if Edwane needed money or none at all if he had enough to survive, they were filled with such gratitude that they kept the illusion on for the healer’s sake. Thinking him some saint while Edwane himself had said numerous times that he only healed in order not to fight those on the route. Earning a living from it was just an added bonus.

Talking to the healer would prove fruitless. He knew his essence from the time of their fight and also knew that the ghost king wanted to use him for his own means. He would ignore him, albeit politely, and his snake tails would strike at him the moment he moved in too close as they were rumored to do with all of Edwane’s past enemies.

Letters would be ignored, even if read. That left only one way of communication available: books! Edwane liked visiting libraries and had used most of his earnings to get a library card in almost all of them, or so the rumor went. Most of his books lined their shelfs. All of them had the title in common, they all started with “An Explorer’s Guide”.

He himself had read quite a few of them. Most were filled with listings of laws one has to abide to in different lands and descriptions of all the notable towns and hamlets in them. A well of common sense that most reader would only drink a cup from at best, a sip at worst and get themselves killed.

There, however, were almost none that did more than gloss over the Ghost Communities and their towns. How can one compel another to join in something he only knew to fear? The unknown might be beautiful but when surrounded by ignorance it become terrible even without reason and the Ghost Communities had plenty terrifying things in them even if someone was well acquainted with them.

So with a sight the great ghost king decided to write Edwane a book to enlighten him that ghosts were not mindless monsters but rather just had a strong worrier culture. Taking out an empty notebook from his satchel he began to write.

An Explorer’s Guide To The Ghost Realm.

By G.K.L 


End file.
